Crisis
by The Last Letter
Summary: Post-PP. When Danny Fenton is having a heroic crisis in the middle of a ghost attack, an unexpected person appears to give him exactly what he needs - a verbal kick in the pants.


"Dipstick!"

I cringed as I heard Ember's shrill voice. She was uncomfortably close to my bedroom window, and I could guess what was coming next. Ember had no sense of personal space or boundaries, so she'd probably come in through my window, demanding something that I couldn't (or wouldn't) do.

Sure enough, Ember stormed through my window, flaming blue hair nearly reaching my ceiling. I noted that pissed off expression on her face, but I was more concerned with whether or not her hair was going to burn my house down.

She cleared her throat and tapped her heavy boot against my bedroom floor. When I didn't respond, she crossed her arms over her chest and cleared her throat pointedly.

"What?" I sighed, flattening myself out on my mattress and focusing on my ceiling. Ember and I didn't have conversations; we had battles. And I really wasn't up to fighting with her.

"We need to talk."

"What on earth could we possibly have to talk about?" I asked her.

"How pathetic you are," Ember snapped. "No one has seen you in two weeks and, from the smell of this place, you've spent _all_ of them in bed. What is wrong with you?"

Instead of answering her question, I rolled over and said, "You sound like my mother."

"Somebody needs to if you've been decomposing in bed for two weeks."

"There's nothing wrong with staying in bed," I mumbled into my pillow.

Ember groaned. "Where are your parents? Don't you have a sister? Why is no one yelling at you?!"

Her voice rose with every word until she was screaming in my ear. I stretched out one arm blindly until my palm connected with her cold cheek. Immediately after my feeble hit, Ember snatched my wrist in her hand and bent my arm behind my back. She straddled my lower back so that I was effectively pinned which, in my opinion, was completely unnecessary. I wasn't going to fight her.

"No really," Ember pushed. "Why are you moping? And why has everyone been letting you mope?"

"I'm not moping," I argued. "And no one needs me. I'm gonna stay in bed until I die and no one is gonna notice."

Ember, who'd been obnoxiously knocking my bent arm against my spine, froze. "You're an idiot, Dipstick," she informed me.

"You're a ray of sunshine," I told her.

"I'm being serious!"

"So am I," I groaned. For a ghost, Ember sure was heavy.

"Do you honestly think that people don't need you?" She asked me, voice oddly serious.

"Of course they don't!" I exploded, flipping her off of me with ease. I rolled into a sitting position, facing Ember who was at the bottom of my bed, rearranging herself so that she was sitting up instead of being a pile of limbs. "Why on earth would anyone need _me_? Every day that I'm out there I'm putting the people I love in danger. My girlfriend was shot with an ecto-blast; my best friend was almost crushed to death because I wasn't paying close enough attention to him; and my family … My family were already targets, simply because of my parents chosen profession. But now that everyone knows that I have two identities, now that the entire world knows that I'm part ghost, they're in even more danger. It's not just vengeful ghosts going after them, it's human scientists who want to experiment on me; it's governments who want to use me for their own military gain; it's evil madmen whose motives I don't even want to know. So, don't tell me that people need me because all I do is put them in danger."

Ember shook her head, flaming blue hair wavering with the slight movement. "You really are an idiot," she accused.

"Why are you here?" I shouted, my anger breaking over me in waves. "Leave me alone!"

"I'm here to talk to you," Ember snapped.

"I don't need talking to!" I roared. "Especially not from some ghosts who always seems to be attacking me!"

"I'm clearly _not_ attacking you," Ember pointed out. "And you clearly need to be talked to."

"Whatever, Ember," I sighed grumpily, keeling over to the side and attempting to bury myself back under my blankets.

"Oh no you don't!" Ember exclaimed. She seized me by my shoulder, throwing me onto my bedroom floor and forcing me to pay completely attention to her. "I am here to interrupt your ridiculously stinky pity party."

"Leave me alone," I muttered half-heartedly.

"No," Ember growled. "You wanna know why I'm here? I'm here because the world _needs_ Phantom. I know, I know. I can't believe it either but you've come a long way Dipstick. You matter to a lot of people; you've saved a lot of lives. There's a price that comes with being a hero, but I'd imagine that the price of not being one is so much more." Her luminescent eyes were oddly caring as she studied me. "What happened after Sam was hit by the ecto-blast?"

"I took her to the hospital," I mumbled. "But if it weren't for me, she wouldn't have been there."

"Wrong," Ember drawled, rolling her eyes. "Sam lives in Amity Park, the most haunted place in the world. She probably would have been shot anyway except you wouldn't have been there to save her. Now, why didn't Tucker get crushed to death?"

"'Cause I grabbed him and pulled him out of the way in time," I answered and was about to argue the same point I had with Sam – if it weren't for me, he wouldn't have been in that position – but Ember didn't give me the chance to talk.

"So you're to blame for Sam and Tucker being _alive_," she pointed out, "That doesn't seem to be a terrible thing to be at fault for. And we both know you aren't to blame for your family being targets. You said it yourself: their profession made them targets."

I moaned. "You're only seeing it the way you want to see it."

Ember paused at my accusation. "Aren't you duping the same thing?"

I gaped at her.

"You see, ever since the ghosts realized that you were no longer out patrolling the streets, they decided to make Amity their own personal playground. You know what happens when ghosts decide to play, don't you?"

I gulped and nodded, images of riots, fires, and civilian injuries and casualties running rampant through my mind. An unchecked ghost was more destructive than any force of nature; its destructive tendencies would overtake them until there was nothing left of the world around them.

I glanced to my window. Was that the scene occurring outside my bedroom as I sat here? Were my parents leaving me alone, not out of frustration, but because they were out protecting the town from vengeful ghosts? The very same town that I should be protecting, not them.

… Speaking of ghosts; I looked at the one in front of me. "Why aren't you out playing?"

"Please," Ember scoffed. "I'm much too good to give into petty urges."

I raised my eyebrows.

"Fine! Your girlfriend gave me a combat to the face. Said that she wanted me to come and talk to you. she said that no human could knock sense into you so a dead person might as well give it a shot."

"Sam kicked you in the face?" I snickered.

"She and Tucker are out there with your parents and sister, trying to protect people."

"Sam's fighting?" This rocked me. Though I had done all that I could to keep all of my loved ones safe, Sam was who I worried about the most. She didn't possess the knowledge the Mom, Dad, and Jazz all had and she lacked the physical intimidation that Tucker had more and more of with each passing year.

"What else did you expect? She's one tough chick, kid. But the ghost hunters are losing," Ember continued. "The only thing that would help is if the ghost kid were to get off of his butt and go kick some."

I stayed silent, trying to digest all of the tidings that Ember had delivered. I'd been so ignorant, lying here in bed and feeling sorry for myself. My friends and family had attempted to talk to me but I had ordered them away, thinking that they had wanted to talk me out of my funk, in reality, I had been needed. I had abandoned the citizens I had sworn to protect; forsaken the streets I had promised to defend. I was supposed to defend. I was supposed to be Amity's hero, but I'd failed.

_NO!_

I forced myself to my feet. It was time for this heroic crisis to be over. I was Danny Fenton _and_ Danny Phantom. I _helped_ people. And it was time for me to start doing my job again.

"Goin' ghost!" I bellowed, beginning my transformation from human into ghost.

In the middle of my change, I thought I heard Ember mutter, "Good job, Dipstick."

The rings having finished altering my body, I faced Ember. "Thank you," I said, "For talking some sense into me."

Ember laughed and pulled me into an unexpected, sibling like, hug. "Aw, you still haven't got any sense, dumb-dumb." She pulled away from me and cackled, "Now, catch me if you can!"

She zipped out my window. An explosion reached my ears a moment after she had disappeared. I grabbed a Fenton Thermos and an ecto-gun and chased after her.

Danny Phantom was back, baby.

**I wrote this for a secret santa on tumblr and then thought I would share with all of you :) I hope you enjoyed it!**

**I don't own anything recognizable.**

**This is not beta'd.**

**~TLL~**


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